Dating buildings using window style

New railways created more opportunities for sourcing materials from afar such as roof slates (which don’t grow in London).

The Victorians had their own distinctive decorative elements which can distinguish a Victorian house from a Georgian one.

The window code in part 1 of this series helps us with the Victorians (unless the owners have outsmarted us and modernised, of course).

Rolled plate glass appeared just before Victoria’s reign, making sash window panes much larger.

When Charles wrote, though Queen Vic was on the throne, most of London — think of those bow fronted shops glazed with little bulls-eye glass panes — was still Georgian.It was not only used to mask cheap brickwork underneath but might even deceive a few into believing it was expensive stone, especially if fake joint lines were inscribed.Regency Architecture, like that around Regent’s Park, is of that time when George III was too mad to rule.It made possible all those vast station roofs and covered markets.The abolition of Window Tax in 1851 came just in time for the Great Exhibition to be held in a ‘Crystal’ Palace in Hyde Park.These include stained glass panes in the windows, ornamented ridge tiles on the roof, shapely wooden barge boards beside the roof and the odd finial.